


7 People

by pipisafoat



Series: Abby Lyman [3]
Category: The West Wing
Genre: Canon Disabled Character, Disability, Disabled Character, Gen, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, chosen family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-11
Updated: 2018-04-11
Packaged: 2019-04-21 16:00:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14288433
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pipisafoat/pseuds/pipisafoat
Summary: He's under the President's desk when they find him.Seven people deal with Josh having an intense PTSD response.





	7 People

**Author's Note:**

> Content notes: No specific description of PTSD symptoms but heavily implied symptoms - should hit the feels more than the triggers. One small reference to What Kind of Day Has It Been / In The Shadow of Two Gunmen, not explicit. Implied undiagnosed PTSD (or at least severe difficulty following the above listed episodes) in a second character.
> 
> Timeline note: Post-Noel but before Abby exists

He’s under the President’s desk when they find him, though Donna disagrees privately. The wreck of a man they find in the Oval isn’t Josh. It’s not the Josh from the campaign, not the Josh from transition or the first two years in the White House, and, Leo will tell her later, not even the little boy Josh who all the blame for his sister’s death silently upon himself. They don’t find the real Josh Lyman until three hours after they find his living body, two hours after they finally coax him out from under the Resolute Desk like a wounded wild animal.

He’s out from under the President’s desk when Sam finds him, striding into the Oval full of coiled tension to try to keep the people in the halls from knowing that the White House came to a screeching halt two hours ago. Sam is glad for the press and the public and even the few Congressmen wandering around, for once, because it means he’s moving smoothly and calmly when Mrs Landingham waves him into the Oval. He still startles Josh, but it’s not so badly that Leo and Donna can’t keep him out of the desk. He’s known Josh for a long time now, known him up and down and drunk and disorderly, but he only recognizes his friend now by the suit Josh was wearing earlier. He wonders if trauma actually brings out the hidden core of people; does he know Josh at all? The thought is unsettling enough that he nods sharply at the small group sitting on the floor and strides right back out of the Oval Office without speaking, strides right into his office, and dials Ma Lyman from memory to do some research. Is this the first time they’re actually finding the real Josh?

Toby doesn’t look for him. Toby hasn’t looked for him once since the night he found him dying. Psychological effects of the shooting, CJ once said, and Toby can’t even care that he feels nauseous at the very thought of looking for Josh Lyman ever again. When they realize they’ve lost him, Toby tells Sam a couple of places to look, places the two older men have gone to talk without Sam, and then he lies down on the couch in his office and fights past the bile in his throat to pray. When Sam’s office door slams seventy minutes later - seventy minutes to find the Deputy Chief of Staff in his own White House, God - he gets up slowly, walks slowly to his desk, writes slowly, and slowly, slowly delivers the note to Donna. He knows he’s even speaking slowly along with too quietly when he murmurs, “Whenever he’s ready to hear from his brother.” He notes out of the corner of his eye that Josh’s office door is partially open, but he can’t look in, can’t look for Josh inside, even knowing the man has to be in there for Donna to be at her desk. 

‘They found him under the President’s desk.’ CJ reads the sticky note silently behind her podium before ripping it into the smallest pieces possible. “Just something personal but time sensitive,” she answers Bill before turning back to the press’s questions about Senator Denning’s amendment. She locks eyes with Danny, though, because she figured out long ago his relationship with Josh, and gives him the barest of nods, watches relief flood his frame. She wishes she could feel the same relief. Information is power, but she’d give anything for her note to have ended after three words. “I need Danny,” she tells Carol, “and anything else you have on J-run.” It makes her sick to have given her friend a code name.

He’s under the President’s desk, and Charlie swallows hard before deciding to wait until the man is out of the Oval before telling the President. He knows his boss would want to know. He knows he’ll be yelled at for not sharing information immediately. (He knows it’ll be out of concern for Josh far more than anger at Charlie, and that makes it okay.) Mrs Landingham assures him they’ve kept the Josh situation completely under wraps, and Charlie lets the President finish his speech and take questions unburdened by the matter. The thing is, he isn’t sure if he’s making this decision for the good of the President or of Josh - his de facto older brother will be best helped by Donna, maybe also Leo or Sam, but definitely not the President. 

His cell phone rings from the private line on the President’s desk while the man himself is still at an event, and Leo swears, turns on his heel, and starts sprinting to the Oval even as he answers. CJ can clean it up later; this is Josh. “Donna? I’m on my way.” His steps falter in the Outer Office at the thought of what he might find in Josh’s shoes, and he neatly turns that hesitation into calm, measured steps under Mrs Landingham’s watchful eye. It doesn’t matter what he finds. This is still Josh, still his son. 

He’s under the President’s desk when they find him, though Josh disagrees privately. They still haven’t found him. They’re still looking. He’s under his own desk now, but they’re still looking. Leo is on the phone with Stanley, Donna is on the phone with Stan, Sam is on the phone with Josh’s mother, and Toby ... last he heard, Toby was speaking quietly and calmly to someone from the VA, and quiet and calm only describe Toby when he either doesn’t care or cares far too much. CJ can’t be on the phone with anyone while she’s briefing the press, and the President is dealing with something, maybe in Russia, that Josh knows he should know, but he’s shaking under a desk with limited access to his memory. They still haven’t found him yet. He wonders if they ever will. He wonders if he ever will.


End file.
